WINE IS LIKE MUSIC
Wine reviewers get teased a lot about the language they use. My son Spencer does a great imitation of me. He sticks his nose into the wine, lifts it out with a look of ecstasy, and proclaims “ahh, a hint of truffle.” It's true that some wine reviews read almost like science fiction. We read about balance, equilibrium, well-rounded, lean, fat, smooth, rough, long, short, and I've even seen a wine referred to as “pretentious.” But the same ephemeral descriptions are also used to describe music. A recent review in the Los Angeles times referred to “blunt treatment of the opening bars” and “fussy adjustments of dynamics.” There were “probing entrances” and “fancy articulation.” A soloist was “graceful and winning” in a “romp.” I feel like a supreme court judge describing pornography when I tell you that even though I can't define many of these terms, I think I sense what they mean.
But taste and smell are something else. The sense of smell is unlike our other senses. Physiologically it is very ancient, and the sensory data travels directly to the center part of the brain—one of the older parts that existed before those involved in sight and hearing. And unlike vision data, which is highly modified before it even gets to the brain, smell data is unfiltered after leaving the sensors. The fact is, we don't really see what we think we are seeing, but we do really smell what we smell. Originally smell was a very important sense. If you're in a dark cave trying to find your mother's breast, or a mother trying to find which kid is yours, it can be really important. And if you don't have the FDA to check all plants before you eat them, it's mighty fine to be able to smell which plants are edible, and which are poisonous. Those with better smell are more likely to survive. Then , of course, there's sexual selection….. But after a time animals began to rely more on vision than smell for most of these tasks. And that ‘s true today---certainly for sexual selection. Once the tech wizards put smell into our TV sets, I'm eager to see what combination they use for Britney Spears and other such stars. So the best the humble wine expert can do to communicate in words what he or she smells and tastes is to use analogies. So it smells like light fruits, and tastes like ripe cherries. Or it smells of fresh oak and tastes like dark berries, with an earthiness, some acidity and tannin on the finish. That's something most people can relate to: we can recall the taste of raspberries and other dark berry flavors, the acidity of a vinaigrette salad dressing, and the aftertaste of tannin after a sip of tea. So when I write about a “humble” wine with deep ruby coloring, a frugal nose of wild Oregon blueberries, the foretaste of cherry pie and aftertaste of fermented cranberries with a touch of tobacco on the finish---you'll know what I mean. Or at least please say that you do. ADDITIONAL ARTICLES |
The fact is that it's really hard to describe tastes, and—perhaps to a lesser extent---sounds. Language is highly dependent on the visual and rational senses. It's not hard to describe what we see (although who knows if the red color I see is the same red color you see). And we've become pretty expert in describing, with words, many feelings and abstract concepts. 
A TOUCH OF FRANCE IN HAWAII